


A Princess of Carn-Dûm

by alienfairyprincess



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Arnor, Diary/Journal, Gen, Sorry guys I wrote this when I was 15, eventually, fair warning everybody dies, i mean this is deep history so everyone's gonna die anyways, obscure lotr history stuff, unless they're immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-02 00:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16775950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienfairyprincess/pseuds/alienfairyprincess
Summary: This short fic represents a late night thought process from several years ago. What was Carn-Dûm, the kingdom the Witch King took over in order to destroy Arnor in the appendices of the Lord of the Rings, like as a kingdom before he took it over? What would that takeover look like to its people - if anyone were lucky enough to survive long enough to describe it? What would that look like, again, to a resident of Arnor, under attack from this great northern threat? And so, I invented a princess. A princess, and an unnamed girl with a journal.





	A Princess of Carn-Dûm

**Author's Note:**

> I was 15 when I wrote this. I am now 21. Please have mercy. However, since the fictional writer of these diary entries was supposed to be 13 herself, I'm leaving it be as it's probably more authentic in little-me's words. I'm sure somehow somewhere Tolkien wrote a letter that disproves this, but it was fun to think of. Also, a fun way to experiment with the Black Breath sickness from the third book.

Journal Entries. Recorded by a 13-year-old girl in one of the smaller surviving towns of Mid-Third-Age Arnor.

****

"The wind howls and whistles about the plain with a voice of it's own. No one dares go out, even in the middle of the day, for it is winter. Not that any are afraid of the snow, there is no time for childish fears anymore. The King of Angmar favors that season above all others and therefore, it is accursed. Today will end like every other, - such that I do not know why I continue to write-, with another cruel night to survive when more voices join the howling wind in a thunder that makes the earth quake with fear... none can survive this nightmare for many days more."

****

"This day I ventured beyond the city walls, all thought me mad, but I thought I must become so if I did not breathe the open air for one minute in five years. Oh, how free it was! I did not go beyond fifteen yards from the city, but they were already planning my funeral when I returned. What terror has taken hold of us that death is the assumed fate of anyone not found within five minutes? Angmar. The king of Gondor will not come. The king of Arnor cannot come. We are under siege by an imagined foe that needs not show his or his servants' faces to scare us so badly that we cannot move. There can be no hope."

****

"Winter! Winter, everywhere! I feel all cooped up like a bird that has foolishly disdained to fly south, and been stuck in this endless world of snow. The snow does look peaceful and beautiful, but none are allowed outside whilst it falls. The tracks of the creatures that swarm the land are covered by it, so that they are made bolder and may even enter the town, walled though it is. My brother is worse off than I, he cannot do anything but sit around while I have this page to write upon. I do not know what will happen to my book when the town is destroyed, but it does not matter. It is a great comfort to me to be able to tell someone else, though they do not exist and are only a page, what happens to us in this forgotten time."

****

"I have met a new friend today! An impossibility in a town with so few children left, but my friend is not a child. I would guess she is thrice my age, and is smaller than me, though I am but thirteen. Not shorter, just thin and weak, for I believe that if she raised herself to her full height she would have a noble appearance indeed, but she never does. Her clothing is fine but horribly tattered with years of overuse, but I still feel that she looks a queen, and acts like one, although it is nothing like the way the princesses behave in the stories father has told me. She seems consumed by a horrible fear of... nothing... nothing that I can see at least, but tries to keep a calm expression although her wide eyes show that she is dying of terror. I did not know "dying of terror" as more than a figure of speech until I met her. She is truly dying of it - she cannot even stand up fully because of it. Though she stands (as far as she does, which is never more than rather hunched over as if freezing cold) or even sits, in a manner befitting a queen, her arms are always tight wrapped about herself, and her eyes cannot stay fixed on one point, so that they are constantly moving, and her entire body is stiff, as if ready at a moment's notice to flee. She seems like the impersonation of our town. We are scared of even what we know is nothing, and cannot live for terror. No one knows where she is from, she was found at the gate this morning with such a pitiable visage that the gates were opened and she was carried in. She had to be carried, due to how weak she was. My parents volunteered to take her in, and I am happy they did, for in the days to come I shall have more time to write about our mysterious visitor."

****

"'Arelûn.' She said to me as I was rebuilding the fire in her makeshift room. 'That is my name.' I was startled to hear her speak, as other than a polite, not to mention grateful, thank you, she seemed scared to make any noise at all. 'Very pleased to make your acquaintance' I smiled, more joyful inside than I could show to learn the name of my friend. She smiled back, a listless, half-hearted thing, that seemed more an attempt to make me pleased with myself than one of actual joy. 'You are not what I was told you are... you are not monsters... you are people who welcome even those who can give you no profit even into your houses when there is naught else you can offer them... I am not used to this sort of treatment.' She looked thoughtful, as if not specifically talking to me, but yet, still preserved her permanently fixed expression of terror as her eyes scanned the room for the hundredth time that day. I wanted to speak, but decided that it would be best to bite my tongue until she stopped of her own accord. 'I was a princess once... but even then no one dared to help me as you do, or only helped because they were forced... We were scared. All of us. You had defeated The Unnamed, and now were come to destroy all else, was the message we were given. We believed it, but we have paid. More so, mayhap than you to whom the punishment was meant to come. You have all been so kind to me... but could you do one last thing? I would have you not believe us, the poor men of Carn-Dûm, to be as evil of our own as you now think. Will you hear my story? I doubt that I shall live much longer than but to finish it, so your reaction shall not be of any consequence.' I nodded, but, seeing as she had completely worn herself out by this speech, regretfully suggested that the interview be postponed until the morrow. I cannot wait for tomorrow, it is the first time since the darkness came that I have had something to look forward to."

***

"'As I told you yesterday, my name is Arelûn. I am the daughter of the last king of Carn-Dûm. The last, for the one that now reigns is King of Angmar and is not of our blood. You must believe me on this point, for I saw what he did on that cursed day when he entered my father's court like the stroke of doom and destroyed all. He is not one of us. My father sat upon his throne as he always did, and I, as a curious child, so very, very long ago, found my way into the room and hid under a table, just to see what he did for all those very long days. My older brother stood near him, looking very regal for the last time in this world. Suddenly, the doors burst open and a figure clothed in black strode in. An aura of... of terror, ... surrounded him such that I shut my eyes tightly and wished with all my might that he would go away. Foolish child, he did not, nor did again ever after. He stalked straight up to the throne and began to speak in a cruel whisper than altogether matched his appearance. My father looked him straight in the eye, and seemed to reply calmly, although I was too far away to hear what they said, neither did I want to.' Here she paused and shuddered, although soon taking courage and beginning again. 'I could not hear, but I could see my brother's face turn white as he fell to his knees. Poor boy, he was never as strong or healthy as I, and could not take such a attack as that must have been. I as well could take no more. Summoning all my courage I crept out of under the table and ran for the door. He did not see me, to my knowledge, but I could not get the image of those icy, dying eyes staring straight through me out of my head as I ran for help. No one came. I called and called, but no one answered. When I finally found someone, they were half dead with fear and would not come. I, swaying on my feet though I was, returned with the first brave person I could find, and helped get my father to a safer place. Ha. No place could be safe. A few days later he was dead, my brother also, of some dark sickness that the creature - I dare not call him man, brought with him. No one but me knew who had caused their deaths, and, when the black-cloaked horror once again appeared in the council room, no one gainsayed him, in any case, they were too scared to resist. In less than a week he was king, and half the lords were dead. Those that remained were completely loyal to him, and seemed to forget that my father had ever existed. 'He will turn Carn Dûm into a new and glorious realm!' They said, which meant basically that he would destroy Arnor, which everyone was then fine with, and now too weak to resist. Me, he would kill. Small though I was, I knew that. No new king could stand to have a daughter of the old still around, and he seemed to know what I had seen. So, I did the only thing I could do. I ran. And ran and ran and ran, until I felt like my legs were to fall off, until I collapsed in front of a village very much like yours, but without the terror of these dark times. The sun still shone there, but still they would not help me unless I gave them gold. I gave them my mother's necklace, and they were satisfied. I lived there for years, how many I cannot count, but it was too long.' She stopped, and without closing her eyes, seemed much fatigued. I had noticed that she never seemed to sleep, but had put it off as that she slept when I was not watching, but now I doubt it. She seemed frightened to close her eyes, even for a moment, and I wondered why, but yet, this page is overfull, and I must leave this story until tomorrow."

****

"'The Witch King had begun his attack, and would in the course of it destroy all the small, neutral towns between him and Arnor, of which the town I was situated in was one.' She continued the next day, seeming even more scared, and tired than before. 'I did not know this and continued to live there until the day the darkness came. I sat indoors sewing, for that was one of the many tasks I performed, when the sky darkened. I wondered at it, for it seemed strange, but when I walked outside I could see it was a great burning. The men of Angmar were burning the fields outside the city and all the sky was filled with a smoky haze. I ran outside the village in terror, hoping to help stop the fire which seemed natural to my mind at the time. It was not, but, as I sank into a ditch to hide from the approaching army, I felt that horrible aura of fear once again, but stronger, far stronger, and suddenly, I lost consciousness. When I awoke, it was dark. No stars shined in the sky, and a red glow rose from the ruined town. I returned there as quickly as I could, but there was very little left. No people other than myself had survived. There was some food, which I gathered up, most of it stored for winter and of a quality to keep for a long time. Several miserable years followed, but I do not have the strength to relate to you my life from then until now, other than that I was pursued by fear from one hiding place to another, never being able to stop, but always feeling most sorry for those armies behind me that marched to destroy all. They are following orders given by a monster who they dare not oppose. And there is no hope for them either. There is death, death, death everywhere, and nothing else since he came to this land. Three weeks ago, I escaped yet another poorly planned trap, which, certainly, was only planned to make me run and not truly to kill me, or he would have done so in the first place, and I ended up in this cruelly open land that you hold so dear. It is horrible for hiding. I managed it, barely, but with a winter come again that I was in no way prepared for I was dying before I ever ran into your gate. Run into it I did, fleeing from a foe who likely did not exist except for in my imagination.' She paused, and looked at me with a face so wholly taken over by terror that it hardly remained a face, but was only an emotion. 'I am dying of the same thing that killed my father and brother. In my flight I have gotten too many close scrapes, and come close to the deadly king too many times, so I shall suffer the same fate as they. I cannot sleep, I cannot close my eyes or I shall die... of fear...' a shrill laugh, 'dying of terror, it would never have been a death I would have chosen for myself.' She smiled wryly for a moment, and stared off into the distance with a strange lessening of fright in her face as she considered a time long gone. With a jolt her mind, and expression, returned to the present. 'That is of no consequence. All that matters is this: run. Never stop. Your enemy is undefeatable. There is nothing anyone can do but stay as far away as possible. But pity your enemies. They cannot run, they cannot flee. We are stuck and forever lost. There can be no hope for us.'

That was the last I saw of her. They say she died the next day, before I could speak with her again. I miss her, and the pleasure of listening to a story again, though it be as dark as reality. This journal, which will likely never be read again as there is word of a force marching to this place from Angmar, is the last anyone shall hear of the last princess of Carn-Dûm."


End file.
